XeroxCool
@XeroxCool@lemmy.world
- Comment on Is it possible to pay someone to create an excel sheet for me? 1 week ago:
Something that may help, if you do end up doing this manually, is utilizing alt+click to highlight in the pdf. It’ll select in a box shape instead of reaching the end of each line like a paragraph. Each line will then get pasted as separate rows in excel. It doesn’t split into columns, so you still have to go with individual vertical selections. It also will break apart multi-line entries like I saw in the description field on your sample, so this will have to be highlighted individually normally. But at least it adds a little speed to those triple coordinate items. Maybe.
- Comment on Why is amperage more "obscure" than voltage (or watts)? 2 weeks ago:
It depends on what’s useful to know.
A microwave is a heating device. It’s not useful to know you’re using a 7a microwave on its own. Is it 120v or 220v? What’s important is the wattage, as an indicator of how much heat it can put into food in a given time. A 700w microwave is going to take longer than the instructions say but could be a 3.5a euro oven or a 7a north american oven.
With lights, wattage ignores the change in voltages as well. But it relied upon the tungsten incandescent being ubiquitous. The socket type defines the voltage, so you just want to know if it’s a soft 25w reading light or a 100w for a garage bay. But now, with the prevalence of fluorescent and then LED lights, wattage has become almost irrelevant. They usually list actual wattage in pale text and “incandescent wattage equivalent” in bold. I’m happy to say I’m finally seeing bulbs state actual lumens now, which is what really matters to the end user. LED lighting is now the least of your electric bill worries.
With a car battery, you’re seeing the options in a later stage of market uniformity. Cars used to very commonly have 6v systems, so the 12v system was distinct. Large trucks use 24v (though I think with dual 12v batteries). But for you buying a car battery, just about all passenger cars are 12v. It’s a specific size like “group 65”, so it’s a 12v of certain size and terminal placement. You do have some options for amperage, listed as CCA. You can’t give more amps to the starter, but rather the battery lasts longer per charge and drops voltage less when under load.
- Comment on Why is amperage more "obscure" than voltage (or watts)? 2 weeks ago:
A high amperage device is not what’s at risk. The wiring is. With defined voltages (by way of plug type), devices can’t draw extra amperage, but you can certainly ask the wires for more amperage than they can safely provide. Fuses and circuit breakers do not protect the device, they protect the wires from burning off their insulation, shorting, or catching fire.
But as a caveat, a 120v device plugged into a 220v source will draw too many amps for the device.
- Comment on Trump Administration Announces That We Don’t Know Where the Sun Goes at Night | After deciding carbon dioxide does no harm, it was the logical next move. 2 weeks ago:
I mean, it was what, 4 years ago that a pro-oil lobby/marketing group made an actual “CO2 is life” commercial saying CO2 is good?
- Comment on Why does most American's give shit to the French when if not for them we would have lost the revolution? 2 weeks ago:
Nobody is mentioning Vietnam? That’s the source of boomer complaints IME. France “abandoned” the US and the industrial war machine convinced the American veterans that it was France’s fault that the greatest military in the world couldn’t defeat communist Vietnam.
- Comment on Families in New York City demonstrated against a proposal to allow cars in a local park. A politician showed up in a car to mock them 2 weeks ago:
I’d bet a dollar it saves one traffic light and I’d bet a second dollar she lives within a quarter mile of the south end of the road. Opened for the relief of the most minor of conveniences.
- Comment on How are locks and keys mass produced? 2 weeks ago:
It’s fine. It’s not the first time I’ve been called AI because I write lengthy things about topics in which I’m knowledgeable. Xkcd.com/3126
- Comment on How are locks and keys mass produced? 2 weeks ago:
I didn’t say you or your question was stupid. I explained why that assumption isn’t right
- Comment on How are locks and keys mass produced? 2 weeks ago:
No point saying the same thing already stated 20 other times here. I went after the opening statement because it’s demonstrably inaccurate
- Comment on How are locks and keys mass produced? 2 weeks ago:
You’re welcome to that interpretation. I saw no point adding a 20th version of the same answers everyone else focused on. I went after the opening statement.
- Comment on How are locks and keys mass produced? 2 weeks ago:
“Made on the same assembly line means it’s the same product” is a myth from people who have no experience in manufacturing/sourcing and are just mad about inflation and do not have a professional interest in the product. The specs are rarely the same. There are often typically significant differences in material, tooling, QA/QC, and warranty. Yes, there are plenty of examples where the upcharge is not justified, but it’s neither the rule nor the exception. It varies wildly across the market. I have my places where I buy premium, I have my places where I buy bottom tier.
For the common end user of household products, the closest they’ll get to understanding this is buying the Amazon, Alibaba, or Temu “version” of something. There will be a dozen differences that make the product worse. Maybe that’s fine for your use. If you think all toothbrushes are the same, try the free ones from a hotel. The handles are small, weak, and usually have sharp mold parting lines. But sure, they were likely made at the same place that made the $6 Colgate because the bristle-placing machine is the most important part of the process.
Meanwhile, towards the other end, a casual household end user will likely never exceed the capability of a hardware store wrench, so they’ll think it’s insane to pay more for a Snap-on at 4x the price. But it makes a difference to someone using and abusing it 8x a day, depending on its function to get paid. If it does break, the warranty replaces it immediately. Lifetime warranties from non-professional brands are notorious for stating it’s the lifetime of the product, not your lifetime, and it expired when it broke or wore out.
At the extreme end would be something like aircraft parts. The “same” bolt at the local store is 1/20 the price. But the aircraft bolt is a higher grade (more expensive), has much tighter tolerances (more money spent on control, higher scrap rate), has backing traceability documentation (money spent on labor and tracking systems), and is likely checked 100% to dimensional spec (money spent on labor and time). You could find the same bolt at the store. You will find a bolt that’s almost the same. You may find a bolt that’s completely wrong. None of that uncertainty is allowable in an aircraft bolt. Those “minor defects here and there” like your toothbrush claim are not acceptable, so systems must be in place to prevent them from escaping. You order a bolt, you get the bolt you ordered. Hundreds of lives depend on it.
- Comment on 3 weeks ago:
I mean it’s my general experience, not a hard rule. Just because the TikTok algorithm actively promotes content with high interaction without any requirement for accuracy doesn’t mean there’s no educational information on the platform.
Alternatives:
- condensed clips are crossposted to tiktok
- self censorship to the strictest level to minimize risk of demonetization
- self censorship to avoid a mature rating, so viewers don’t have to log in to watch
- self censorship to the strictest degree based on all popular platforms’ requirements because that is “the internet”
People have always doe weird censorship things as both users and admin. Forums used to **** everything. Then things were free. The big companies started facing public pressure for beings the hosts of content and locked down again.
- Comment on 3 weeks ago:
I didn’t know about the cough reflex. I’ll have to check if it’s both sides. Can you taste iodine? It’s present in hot pink food dye, making things like pink peeps taste worse than yellow or blue for me
- Comment on 3 weeks ago:
That degree of censorship usually implies the content is dual posted to TikTok in my experience
- Comment on How long does it take for pregnancy to become noticeable? 4 weeks ago:
I’m glad you’re married but I’m concerned it was kept a secret. I guess if there’s a personal/family history of miscarriages, someone might want to hold the news in…
- Comment on Why do some car lovers oppose bike infrastructure, when more bikes would mean fewer cars on the road? 4 weeks ago:
Expand the bike lanes into what? I don’t have the Australian experience. The places where infrastructure is compact enough to benefit from bike lanes in the US have already been expanded to be, effectively, wall to wall car ways with sidewalks. It does become a sort of zero sum game from a surface area argument of car vs bike vs pedestrian vs building. So, from a tangible perspective, cars lose ground. It’s too much of a mental simulation to imagine how reducing car lanes becomes a benefit to those that must drive because of a reduction of traffic and potential improvement to overall flow.
- Comment on Why do some car lovers oppose bike infrastructure, when more bikes would mean fewer cars on the road? 4 weeks ago:
I’m sorry we exported that ideology. I love utes. My next vehicle may very well be a tall American version of a ute to replace my compact pickup. Maybe I won’t need it by then if the home projects reduce in size. I wish more cars had trailer hitches here but, just like our daily driving “needs”, there’s this belief that only trucks can pull trailers. Even a 1.5m x 3m sofa hauler needs a F150
- Comment on How/why does Microsoft teams exist? 4 weeks ago:
Teams doesn’t even support task assignment, tasks are handled in Ms Planner which is an entirely different product that just happens to be visible inside of Teams if you want
Do you really not see how Ms has pushed Teams to be a fucking awful imaginary OS box? They’re just tasks (Planner in a trench coat), it’s just a calendar (ripped from outlook), they’re just files (the worst way to access SharePoint), it’s just one drive (in the worst interface), they’re just notifications (triplicates of what outlook and windows already told me).
touch? Mac? Airpods? What the fuck are you doing? You aren’t doing real business if you’re using an ipad
Oh, honey. Not every job is performed by being fisted with code and network protocol. Businesses run on inappropriate excel databases and you know it. You know the number of local programs is dwindling by the second as each software dev moves to “access from anywhere” and “remove the burden of server management” as they slide down an icy hill towards putting everything in a cloud based Web interface. Either that, or you’re middle management that thinks you need asses in visible chairs to get work done.
- Comment on How/why does Microsoft teams exist? 4 weeks ago:
Yes, the all in one. Beautiful.
“I’m in the files tab and I’m 6 folders down, halfway through reviewing a word doc. I’m still in the teams app because downloading a file saves it somewhere between purgatory and duat, so this is easier” ping “Oh, a message. Hold my spot in the file and folders while I check that” Teams: actually, you could go fuck yourself.
I went months without noticing it, but you can open the Teams library in the web because it’s just a SharePoint folder in a trench coat. Bookmarked immediately.
- Comment on Why do some car lovers oppose bike infrastructure, when more bikes would mean fewer cars on the road? 5 weeks ago:
Surely, this question is targeted at USA/North Americans. The average commute is beyond biking distance. The average suburb is sprawled beyond biking convenience. So, exactly to your point, people reliant upon cars largely don’t see the benefit potential of bike lanes. You can point to tight older cities like NYC or Chicago, but, surprise, the cars in the city traffic aren’t fromthe city. They drove in form the surrounding neighborhoods to their jobs.
I biked for 2 years when I happened to get a career job in the town I lived. It made sense because I could cut through a park and skip the traffic light bottleneck. The 2nd closest career job I’ve ever had was 17 miles. The furthest was 65 miles.
- Comment on Why do some car lovers oppose bike infrastructure, when more bikes would mean fewer cars on the road? 5 weeks ago:
Because every iteration of bike improvements has been fucked up. Isolated bike lanes that are painted where they can fit, but don’t properly connect anything. Bike lanes that are squeezed into part of a wider car lane. Designated shared bike/car lanes on 35mph roads that make cyclists a rolling obstruction to smooth traffic flow. Bike lanes squeezed between a travel lane and a parallel parking lane, causing exchange chaos, and double obstructions when city drivers double park in the bike lane. Widened shared pedestrian paths where cyclists are to pedestrians what cars are to bikes. Cyclists that think the bike lane isn’t for them. Cyclists going the wrong way. Cyclists taking their “right of way” sporadically, expecting drivers to read their minds. Bike lanes that barely overlap with my usual travel needs. Bike lanes in areas too sparse to be utilized for anything other than exercise.
I am a car lover. I am a motorcycle lover. I am a bicycle lover. I am a walking lover. I am a train lover. I am a bus lover. I use all modes of travels as they fit my needs and wants - how far, what logistics, what weather, what cargo, what fuel cost, what purpose.
- Comment on Why do I push people away if I'm so lonely? 5 weeks ago:
My take is to review prior abandonment. Very few people in your life will have a relationship that’s both strong and life-long. (As a very significant footnote, I am not going to justify abondonment by close family or disrespectful/exclusionary acts by friends, only more Bajaj separations). It’s very easy to lose people as you change homes, schools, jobs, and hobbies. For a long time, I felt that was all due to them being fair-weathered and abondoning me, you could say. Maybe I wasn’t great, either. But, as circles have come and gone, I’ve learned to stop feeling sad for the friends I’ve lost and instead enjoying both the friends I currently have and the times with friends of the past. That in no way is meant to say the prior friends are thrown away, but rather it is to say live in the moment and cherish the memories.
I miss my best friend from pre-school, but we no longer live across the street from each other. I miss my best friend from 2nd grade, but we no longer walk to school together. I miss by friend circle from 6th grade, but I no longer go to their church. I miss my friend circle from high school, but I no longer play soccer with them. I miss my friends from college, but we no longer dorm together. I miss my friends from every prior job, but we no longer spend 40 hours a week together. I miss my biking friends, but it’s winter. I miss my cousins, but we’ve moved apart and rehashed who our closest family members are by way of our spouses. I have my current work friends, I have my current hobby friends, but they, too, will likely be inactive parts of my past at some point. Every friend listed here was a friend not just from compatible personalities, but also from shared experiences. For a long time, I mourned their absence and felt everything was superficial. But, quite frankly, that’s just not right. I do not regret any of the fun times spent with them. They were friends that day. You might see them again.
Stop putting asterisks on your acquaintances to degrade their status. Maybe it’s less abondonment and more natural separation.
This comic chart has stuck with me since I first saw it. I believe it helped me understand this sort of zen mindset. It is by Olivia de Recat, though it appears her original site is down. What stood out to me is that the lines are not defined as “me vs them”. They’re ambiguous. Either line can be the first to depart. Either line can be the first to return. The FWB one shows how a slow departure can trigger the other to simply leave entirely, a pattern likely present in many former relationships of any kind. Neither person is in full control. I’ve pictured many other paths since then.
- Comment on Is it possible to reverse pit a copcar before they pit you? Like if you know a cop is going to pit you on their right side, can you use your left back end to hit them first? 5 weeks ago:
Nearly all road vehicles are front heavy, but FWD has been dominant in the passenger market for 30 years. PIT works fine on FWD, so the drive wheels aren’t important. Static vs dynamic friction is not the primary mechanic. In fact, the drag from the skidding rear tires is imparting greater force to the road than the rolling front tires because the front tires are nowhere near the limit of traction at straight, steady speed. Think about this: isn’t it hard to do a burnout in most cars? And even if you burn some rubber, it may only be one wheel, or it may only be up to 10 or 20, and it probably only happens in 1st gear. Very few cars can spin the wheels in 2nd, so 3rd-6th is, effectively, impossible. There’s plenty of grip left.
It’s entirely about the timing of the impact and placement of the steer wheels. A police sedan can PIT an SUV that has more weight on its rear axle than the cruiser’s front. A cruiser can pit a Porsche coupe with a rearward weight distribution. A Porsche can PIT another Porsche, as it’s effectively seen in GT racing. Losing front traction, as happens to the PITing vehicle, is very manageable because the steer wheels can be turned to regain and maintain control directly. Losing traction in the rear wheels becomes an inverted pendulum situation because the rears are not steerable. But, as you can practice by tapping your e-brake, a rear slide is self-recovering unless it’s slid past the tipping point where the vehicle is rotating faster than the sliding rear wheels can drag themselves rearward again. Crossing the tipping point is caused by the PITing car’s momentum. I specify tapping the e-brake because a skid in a PIT spin is not simple - the rear wheels are still spinning and are imparting a directional force. A locked rear wheel is a plain skid opposing the direction of travel. A rolling skid means the total force is pointing somewhere between opposite the directional of travel and opposite the direction of the wheel.
There’s plenty of failed PIT maneuver videos for taps that are too light (causing the runner to just wiggle), taps that are too brief (runner wiggles), and taps that are too far forward (runner laterally slides but maintains control). It’s tricky to pull off correctly and many cops do it wrong, which is another main reason it’s banned in many places.
A J-turn is caused by the same physics: imparting a rotational force that overcomes the wheels’ grip, past the tipping point. It doesn’t even start with a slide. By going fast in reverse and turning the wheel, the mass of the car is sent into a powerful rotation because the steer wheels are at the far end of the rotational center. The rear wheels sometimes don’t skid at all at lower speeds. But it still comes down to the same thing: a sideways force causing the “rear” wheels to overtake the “front” wheels
- Comment on If the color of the Sun was orange, wouldn't the clouds and everything white also be orange? My friend is adamant that 30 years ago the "real" Sun was orange but got replaced with a white LED. 5 weeks ago:
Well… That’s the particular reason I’m keyed into it. I haven’t actually ventured far enough to actually need the KGBFOAM mnemonic. However, I am currently docked on the Distant Worlds 3 carrier. DW3 just launched on the 18th. I believe it’s near Colonia right now, at the planet of death, where the land able planet is in a jet cone.
- Comment on If the color of the Sun was orange, wouldn't the clouds and everything white also be orange? My friend is adamant that 30 years ago the "real" Sun was orange but got replaced with a white LED. 5 weeks ago:
The sun is a G-class star. It’s yellow or yellow-white by classification. The order from blue to red is OBAFGKM, with white being an A leaning towards an F. The perceived earthbound color of Sol skews further yellow because of the aforentioned blue-scattering.
- Comment on If the color of the Sun was orange, wouldn't the clouds and everything white also be orange? My friend is adamant that 30 years ago the "real" Sun was orange but got replaced with a white LED. 5 weeks ago:
The sun is yellow. Being orange wouldn’t drastically change the color of everything we see. Pure sunlight is like 4300K in color temeprature, pure white is about 5000K, but clear sky daylight, the actual summation of light, is more like 6500K. This is because rayleigh scattering in the atmosphere shines blue light towards us across the whole sky. You’re seeing bright blue sky, the bright blue sky is shining on your daily life. This is why cloudy days are gray. The clouds are blocking enough of the blue to create a more neutral pure white.
The sun is tinted as hell in smog, though. I got a taste of classic Los Angeles in recent Indian winter.
- Comment on What challenge from a game isn't worth completing and what challenge from a game is worth completing? 5 weeks ago:
I enjoyed the Tokyo Drift achievement in Sea of Thieves. I was running from a larger ship and naturally thought of going full steer around a rock and dropping anchor. It worked! We lived.
- Comment on If a Space Elevator became a reality, wouldn't the cable act as a kind of wick for all of the unfiltered radiation from outside our atmosphere? 5 weeks ago:
It still can’t really fall. It’d be moving incredibly fast sideways. Fast enough to miss the Earth for a while. Geo stationary orbit is the point where orbital speed matches Earth’s rotational speed, so if it’s anchored at the ground, then it’s at orbital speed if at GEO. The higher the orbit, the slower the orbital speed. So using a higher orbit to maintain tension means it’d be traveling beyond escape velocity, held down by the cable. A break would release the mass into the solar system
- Comment on Ice fishing today for what will probably be the last time this century 1 month ago:
By me, the overnight temperature rises have usually come with precipitation behind it. The opposite has happened where temperatures drop after 9am with drier winds. I can’t exactly say it’s normal or that I’m particularly knowledgeable on the matter, but I’ve independently theorized it’s really just standing out now because I frequently look at hourly forecasts. Between hobbies and maintenance, I’m now interested in such a granular report. I didn’t always have to care this much and got by just fine with morning/afyernoon/evening/overnight
- Comment on Are there any art programs designed specifically for mouse users? 1 month ago:
Have you ever tried making a proper drawing with a mouse?
